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Melissa Bennet, Army Wife, and blogger is pictured here with her Soldier and their two beautiful children.

There is no disputing that what Soldiers do on the front lines is hard. Depending on the situation, they may literally be dealing with life and death. I have yet to hear anyone say “being at war isn’t really a big deal”, but I have however, heard people refer to the home front side of deployment as a “vacation.”

I think my OFS (Operation Faithful Support) group facilitator, Jill Bozeman, put it best when she told us to imagine deployment as a coin. There are two sides that make up the coin, just as there are two unique parts of a deployment; downrange and home front. She reiterates that neither is better, but both are necessary. Instead of thinking of my situation as waiting for my husband to get back from deployment I started viewing it as a sort of deployment itself.

My experience will never be the same as his downrange experience. It just won’t. In most ways, I cannot relate to my husband’s experience from the past year at all, but in the same way he cannot relate to my home front experience. So of course the rational thing to do is put my experience in army terms.
Our house may just look like a house to him, but to me, this is where I survived and did what I had to in order to keep things running smoothly. This is my bunker. My troops are my kids. They look to me for guidance to lead them through the confusion of having daddy gone. They look for my steady gaze and my “everything is alright” smile. We have systems in place to keep the “troops” in line. Above all, I must never lose my head or panic. We have morale boosters in the form of a few select dance songs. We go on missions to the playground and the grocery store. Sometimes they are uneventful, but sometimes we need to call in some backup in the form of a lollipop, band-aid, and an extra shot of espresso. His nights freezing on the mountaintop are my nights with a screaming toddler in the ER. He gets jolted awake by explosions nearby, my heart jumps awake with the hellish scream from my two year old having a nightmare. I have my giant diaper bag with me everywhere (whether I will need it or not), and he carries his gun.

Reading this, you may be thinking “how in the world does a mission through enemy territory compare to a trip to the grocery store?” Well, it doesn’t really. But this is my reality. These are my trials and sometimes I really feel like I might not make it out alive (or my kids for that matter). Having my keys in the correct pocket of the diaper bag is as important to me as the ammo being in the correct spot for him. I learned about the keys from accidentally locking my two kids in the car in a strange city in the middle of a road trip, because, you guessed it, I forgot to put the keys in the diaper bag. The panic I felt at that moment still gives me nightmares. It may just be a key put it a particular place, but for the past year, the keys being in that spot has saved me time and time again. It has become a necessity in a time where I couldn’t count on much and didn’t know what problems I may have to go through alone. So, “why do the keys have to go there?” They go there because if they don’t, I will lose my mind and you will lose your balls. OKIE?

To an outsider, it may just be a brand of coffee, or a pair of shoes, or a key pocket, but you never know what those little things mean to a deployed-at-home spouse. Still don’t get it? Guys?

What would happen if instead of him coming home at the end of deployment, I went to Afghanistan? Would he let me near the equipment? How much training would I need to go through? What would happen if I tried to change his system? What would he do if I asked “Why do you have to bring your gun with you everywhere”, or tried to convince him to leave it behind? What if I decided to “help out” and re-organize the supplies? It’s no laughing matter. It’s not something you can just walk into and take over. There is serious stuff going on. It is very much the same when the Soldier comes home.

We can value both sides of the deployment coin without making our experiences a competition. The home front role is also deserving of respect while the Soldiers are away. We are not sliding down rainbows and picking daisies. This is real. This is terrifying. This is surviving.

Melissa Bennett is a talented, and extremely busy Army wife of three years, as well as being a mother of two extraordinary children, ages 1 and 3. She and her family are currently headed to Vilseck, Germany, after a tough deployment with the 3/1 IBCT of Fort Knox, Ky. For more about Melissa, visit her blog at www.infantryhomefront.blogspot.com .

2 Responses to “The Flip Side of “His” Deployment”

Melissa, thank you so much for your wonderful article. It puts in perspective our home front experience as a valuable PART of the deployment coin. I appreciate you taking the time to help others through the sometimes frustrating search for finding worth in our home front contribution. You are truly a stellar spouse. Thank you again!

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